Salem Express

A passenger and car ferry that struck the reef late on the night of 14–15 December 1991 and sank in about 20 minutes. Hundreds of pilgrims returning from Jeddah died. She lies on her starboard side, from 12 m on the port rail down to 30 m on the sand.

12–30 mdepth range

115 mlong

1991sank

This wreck is a grave. The guided dive stays outside the hull, as divers are asked to do, and lasts about 8 minutes. Tap Sound for regulator breathing. Take control any time with the joystick or by dragging to look.

Hyndman Reef · south of Safaga · Egyptian Red Sea

Salem Express

A 115 m ferry lost on the night of 14–15 December 1991 with hundreds of lives. On her starboard side, port rail at 12 m, sand at 30 m. Please treat her as the grave she is.

Depth

–

DiveAir · 21%

0.0m

Time0:00

Max0.0 m

NDL--

Heading000°

Temp26°C

Tank200 bar

ASC

Illustrative only. Not for dive planning.

Drag to look · joystick to swim · ▲ ▼ to rise and sink

Swim

Dossier

Everything in this list comes from published histories and dive-site descriptions. It sets the model's size, attitude and details.

Ship: Roll-on/roll-off passenger and car ferry. Built at La Seyne-sur-Mer, France, and entered service in 1966 as the Fred Scamaroni on the Marseille–Corsica route. Later the Nuits Saint Georges, Lord Sinai and Al Tahra, and the Salem Express from 1988, running Jeddah–Suez/Safaga for Samatour.
Size: Usually given as 115 m long and 17.8–18 m beam, about 4,771 gross tons. One source gives 101 m. Certified for about 1,200 passengers and 142 vehicles.
Loss: On the night of 14–15 December 1991, returning from Jeddah with pilgrims, she left the usual route and struck Hyndman Reef at about 23:13. The impact holed the starboard bow and forced the bow door open. The car deck flooded and she sank in about 20 minutes. The captain, Hassan Moro, was among the dead.
Lives: The official toll is 464–470. Many believe it was far higher, because the number on board is disputed. About 180 people survived. Bad weather and the speed of the sinking meant almost no lifeboats were launched.
Attitude: Intact, lying on her starboard side. The port side faces up at about 10–12 m. The sand is at 30–32 m. One guide says port side down; every other source says starboard.
Features: Bow door (visor) open. Anchors still in their hawses. Two funnels with the company's large S emblem. Empty lifeboat davits, with a lifeboat on the seabed nearby. Rows of cabin windows and handrails. Two propellers and the rudder at the stern, and an open car-deck door. Her name is still faintly readable.
Inside: Passengers' belongings are still in and around the wreck: suitcases, bicycles, clothes, radios, prayer rugs. Vehicles remain on the car deck. The Egyptian Navy recovered bodies in the days after the sinking. Some accounts say lower passenger areas were sealed.
Life: Coral growth is sparse for a Red Sea wreck: hard corals and sponges. Pipefish, schooling parrotfish, butterflyfish, snappers, trevally, moray eels and anemones with clownfish are reported.
Divers: Intermediate to advanced. Currents can be strong. Visibility is usually 15–30 m. About 1.5 hours by boat from Safaga. Entry into the passenger areas is not allowed, and many guides and divers choose not to dive the site at all.

No public plans, survey or photogrammetry were used. The ship is rebuilt from her published dimensions and the typical layout of a mid-1960s French car ferry, fitted to the depths and details in the Known tab. Check it against your own footage.

Assumed

Hull: 115 m × 17.8 m, with a raked stem, a bow visor hinged at the top, a transom stern with a car-deck door, bilge keels and twin shafts on A-brackets.
Superstructure: three decks of cabins and saloons over the hull, the bridge forward with bridge wings, a promenade deck with open walkways, two funnels side by side abaft midships, and eight lifeboat davits.
Attitude: rolled 88° onto the starboard side, bow slightly deeper. That puts the port rail at about 12 m, the propellers at about 24 m and the sand at 30 m.
The visor hangs open about 35°. A few vehicles show through the opening. The stern ramp is half down.
The lifeboat on the sand lies off the deck side, amidships. Scattered suitcases and bags are placed near the bow opening. Their real positions are not recorded.
The reef edge to the east of the bow is illustrative. The real distance and heading are not recorded here.

Dive mode

The guided dive stays outside the hull throughout. It starts deep at the stern, runs along the sand and the bow, then comes up over the port side for the shallow part and the safety stop.
The dive computer's no-decompression limit uses the recreational air table and a simple nitrogen-loading estimate. Gas use assumes a 12 L tank and 15 L/min surface consumption. It is for immersion only. Never plan a real dive with it.
Breathing cycles every 5 seconds. Exhaled bubbles rise and grow as they rise. Regulator sound is synthesised in your browser.

How it's rendered

Water absorbs red light fastest, then green, then blue. The shader applies that per channel along both the sunlight's path down and your line of sight, so the port side keeps some colour at 12 m and the reds are gone by the sand. The torch brings colour back up close.
Moving caustics, light shafts, marine snow, ambient occlusion and bloom. Growth, rust, rivets and sand ripples are generated per pixel from position. Turn off Cinematic on slower devices.

What would sharpen it

General-arrangement plans of the Fred Scamaroni (1966), which would fix the superstructure, window rows and funnel position.
A lap of the hull on video at a steady 2–3 m standoff, plus a few measured distances. That is enough for photogrammetry.
The wreck's heading, the distance to the reef, and where the lifeboat lies.